Jack had checked every store. He'd gone to every hardware, garden or nursery store, and then he'd gone back.
They gave him the same spiel everywhere he went. "No seeds, dahling," they'd say. "The apples had no seeds this year."
Despairing, he sat down at the wooden bar, rested his elbows and called for the tender. "Gimme a hard cider. You're best stuff."
"Sorry," the tender said, laying her voluptuousness on the bar across from him. "No apples this year, means no cider. No apples last year, means no cider. No apples for five years, no cider. Get the picture?"...
Beer - Bier - l'alcool - it's all you really wanted
You are just so damn cold, inside and out. First day of November and you wake up to snowfall. All day you stayed inside trying to forget things: forget to find a job, forget to write up resumés, forget to eat, forget to follow through. But now you're outside and it's dark; it's been dark since 17:00. You're outside and it's cold; temperatures dropping to 2°c today. Guten Morgen the world said and Guten Nacht you told yourself. The damn cold just won't go away, the umbrella doesn't hide...
Milkshakes from the cosmos! Or something like that. That's what I wanted my small business to be like. But this putrid fucking recession! Quit smoking. 43 days. You're goddam right I'm proud--not just anyone, that's for sure! Yeah my kid's joining the army. Can't stop him. I bought him season's tickets to the Donut Holes his whole damn life. Sure they ain't no Kan-zass Cit-tee Roy-als, but they play some sure as shit baseball, that's all I know. He hit that girl last summer, and things ain't been working out for him ever since. Yeah, sure I told him to...
I was born inside a leather and land lace tomato breast. My father was a blues singer and my mother was a vegetarian prostitute. My toenails were always brittle, and my ribs aplenty. However, my vertebrae had a slight curvature, which lent itself to future sideways glances--both coming and going.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. It wasn't always rainy inside of my leather and lace tomato breast womb, but occasionally some foreign government, or Delta slide-playing red rooster would seed the environs of my leather and lace tomato breast womb. Seeding has been outlawed m]for military use by...
Without a doubt, the hat makes the man.
Douglas VanHornersmeltser knew this. He also knew that without removing his hat, the bald spot atop his head would never receive the proper tan he needed for his date at precisely 7 p.m. on the night of Saturday the 11th of January.
A prudent New Englander, Douglas had rarely ventured to concern himself with tanning, his chaste, leathery skin almost always coated in the finest sheer of exfoliated heaven. Yet on this very occasion he sought the affections of the lady up 12th Avenue, Lydia Snout.
An elegant woman with slender legs...
Decked out in a tight green speedo, Charles swung open his screen door, strutted down the three concrete stairs into his dilapidated back yard and was instantly wet.
The rain occupied every inch of sky. Somewhere there must be sun, but not in Indiana. Charles watched the clouds slumber in their beds, unmoving. Now was noon though, and soon would be two PM. These were prime tanning hours, and how, how, did Charles need a tan.
Hosts of elder-cruises were always tan, and this being his first elder-cruise, he was going to be a tan host. As an elder himself...
He put on his green scarf and walked out the door. Damn door. Never closed properly.
The sun was peaking behind some clouds. Damn clouds. It was probably going to rain.
He winced as he felt the warm sun on his face. It had been months since he'd seen the sun, months.
Damn sun. Probably give him skin cancer, at best, a tan.
One misty morning, the green-clad man woke up to his usual alarm clock. He looked out his window to see the sun shining heavily. "Jolly good! I can finally get a tan, and women will find me attractive!" He exclaimed as he rushed out from his covers to get dressed. As he was walking out the front door, he heard an unfortunate newscaster announce, "Well, if you're planning to go to the beach today, you might want a change in plans. Turns out lots of rain is headed in only a couple of hours. It's a good thing I already...
It was enjoyable, this feeling. And so unaccustomed! He had come to a place in his life where so little really made him happy anymore. Leaving the store, though, despite the fact that it was a cloudy, cool day, he felt sunny on the inside. He had bought a new shirt, and he was wearing it - he decided to put it on right away, before he had even left the store. It was green - but a certain shade of green that he didn't see very often. It was his favorite color, and it had called out to him....
When he went to the pet store Mark Anderson thought it was going to be just another day. He was going to pick out the goldfish for his nephew's birthday and head on his way. Boy was he ever wrong.
It started as soon as he walked in, the cashier was giving him a very funny look that Mark couldn't exactly place. The pets were even weirder. They all looked as though they'd been through hell and back, but Mark, startled as he was, kept looking for that goldfish. If only he'd left then.
He got to the aquarium section...